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BAKS ON IMPERIALISM (1900)

"Neue Zeit" XIX, 1 (1900-1) (November 21, 1900), p. 247

Belfort Baks: "A Widely Spread Error"

"One of the most frequent delusions one encounters in discussions of questions on imperialism and the new colonial policy has apparently penetrated into some socialist heads"...

And further, the arguments of those who defend colonial policy on account of the progressiveness of capitalism are examined. Baks refutes them...

..."Capitalist-national imperialism—that is the answer which capitalism gives to international social-democracy.... World history now stands before such a choice—either nationalist-capitalist imperialism, or internationally-socialist democracy!"...

...The contemporary economic system... (insofar as it takes hold of new spheres of activity)... "receives artificial prolongation of its existence"...

Among other things, the polemic between Bernstein and Kautsky. Bernstein reminds [one] that Belfort Baks already in 1896/7 cursed Bernstein, and that Kautsky was then allegedly on Bernstein's side. Kautsky replies:

Baks allegedly went so far as to say that

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N.B.: imperialism on imperialism
4/900

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LENIN MISCELLANY

slavery, than capitalism"—literally—and I, allegedly, neither then nor now stand with Baks in this way, considering it "sentimental utopianism." But I have allegedly always been against colonial policy.

cf. "Neue Zeit" XIX, 1 (1901), p. 804: M. Beer on the decay of England and on imperialism. "Neue Zeit" XX, 1, p. 209: "Social Imperialism" (Fabians), p. 243 "imperialist-social era."

BAKS ON IMPERIALISM
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"better slavery than capitalism"—literally—and I, allegedly, neither then nor now stand with Baks in this way, considering it "sentimental utopianism." But I have allegedly always been against colonial policy.

cf. "Neue Zeit" XIX, 1 (1901), p. 804: M. Beer on the decay of England and on imperialism. "Neue Zeit" XX, 1, p. 209: "Social Imperialism" (Fabians), p. 243 "imperialist-social era."

N.B.

ON DEBS

"Neue Zeit" 1913-4, 32, 1, p. 1007-8. Debs in the International Socialist Review (March 1913) for the unity of the Socialist Party + Socialist Labor Party (Debs founder of the Industrial Workers of the World) and the I.W.W. against the American Federation of Labor. Against Debs furiously the "New Yorker Volkszeitung," March 7, 1913, saying that Debs abuses his "privilege of talking nonsense" (sic!), that the Industrial Workers of the World = zero, that the American Federation of Labor = "the American labor movement," and that "it is simply impossible to 'progressively educate' the workers' movement of a country through the formation of so-called revolutionary organizations with radical programs." (Sic!)... (Evidently, the usual picture there as well: the "New Yorker Volkszeitung" = the "orthodox" Kautskyians, and Debs—a revolutionary, but without clear theory, not a Marxist.)

ON DEBS

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